re: Daily Mail: British NHS puts sick babies on "death pathway"(Posted by SlowFlowPro on 11/29/12 at 2:31 pm to 50Mullets)

quote:How about we just avoid committing infanticide.

well these kids seem to be babies who are going to die. they're not just starving normal/healthy babies

the question is how many resources do we devote to trying to save them, and how painful do we want their death to be?

fwiw, one reason why european medical care gets rated so highly is b/c they let babies like this die while we try to save them. once you try to save them and they die, it counts against you. if you just let them die, it doesn't.

re: Daily Mail: British NHS puts sick babies on "death pathway"(Posted by MSMHater on 11/29/12 at 2:37 pm to SlowFlowPro)

quote:fwiw, one reason why european medical care gets rated so highly is b/c they let babies like this die while we try to save them. once you try to save them and they die, it counts against you. if you just let them die, it doesn't.

The cost of trying to save them also counts, and is a big factor in overall healthcare expenditures. Same applies for expiring geriatrics. The "heroic medicine" attitude is a huge part of our problem.

I'm sure the medical reasoning behind these deaths are much less sinister than the publication and OP portray them to be.

quote:The cost of trying to save them also counts, and is a big factor in overall healthcare expenditures. Same applies for expiring geriatrics. The "heroic medicine" attitude is a huge part of our problem. I'm sure the medical reasoning behind these deaths are much less sinister than the publication and OP portray them to be.

There is no doubt that life extending medical care skyrockets expenditures.

The issue/concern for me is, when you try to alleviate that by making the good faith effort to avoid those costs by letting nature take its course, you potentially create an attitude shift from "Let's do our best at all times" to something a little less than that.

While surely a small percentage would fit this criteria, it would be awfully scary to be a "borderline" case in a cost cutting environment.

I'd rather some system that would look to the patient's ability to pay for such treatment. If we have an obviously near impossible case, the patient/patient's family must prove the ability to pay or a charity must come along to continue "the good fight."

quote:Bernadette Lloyd, a hospice paediatric nurse, has written to the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health to criticise the use of death pathways for children.

'‘I have also seen children die in terrible thirst because fluids are withdrawn from them until they die'

She said: ‘The parents feel coerced, at a very traumatic time, into agreeing that this is correct for their child whom they are told by doctors has only has a few days to live. It is very difficult to predict death. I have seen a “reasonable” number of children recover after being taken off the pathway.

‘I have also seen children die in terrible thirst because fluids are withdrawn from them until they die.

‘I witnessed a 14 year-old boy with cancer die with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth when doctors refused to give him liquids by tube. His death was agonising for him, and for us nurses to watch. This is euthanasia by the backdoor.’

Most everyone here has children. Do you remember how they cried when they were hungry/thirsty? Can you even imagine withholding food/fluids from one, no matter their prognosis?

How can it be considered "compassionate care" when they suffer not only their symptoms but hunger and thirst until their death?

Some children are going to die and there's no way around it. They should be made as comfortable as possible until death occurs. This LCP process, though, seems to be a means of hurrying that event with little care for comfort or compassion.

re: Daily Mail: British NHS puts sick babies on "death pathway"(Posted by BugAC on 11/29/12 at 3:03 pm to TigerTattle)

quote:Some children are going to die and there's no way around it. They should be made as comfortable as possible until death occurs. This LCP process, though, seems to be a means of hurrying that event with little care for comfort or compassion.

It's absolutely sickening. But hey, we get to try it out now. At least we get a cool phone.

re: Daily Mail: British NHS puts sick babies on "death pathway"(Posted by McChowder on 11/29/12 at 3:15 pm to TigerTattle)

quote:I did. 'Death pathway targets' does imply that they have a target number to reach, and that number dictates cash payments.

No doubt this is about incentivizing euthanasia as a cost control measure.....and people are called nutz for questioning so called "end of life counseling ". Doctors are going to be pressured to "sell death" like used car salesmen hustling for a bonus.